SDN-Based Service Function Chaining in Kubernetes Using Network Service Mesh with Kernel-type Network Interfaces for Industrial IoT

The increasing adoption of Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) and Kubernetes for Industrial IoT applications has sparked interest in Service Function Chaining (SFC) deployment within Kubernetes environments. However, deploying SFC in Kubernetes requires a flexible and manageable network infrastructure, which Kubernetes alone cannot provide. Network Service Mesh (NSM) has emerged as a popular solution by offering layer 2 and 3 service mesh capabilities with various features tailored for Kubernetes clusters. Despite NSM’s support for SFC, it needs to meet the requirements for industrial IoT use cases due to its lack of integration with Software-Defined Networking (SDN) controllers and its incapacity to provide Kernel-type network interfaces for Network Function (NF) pods. This paper proposes a solution to address these limitations by integrating NSM with an SDN controller and enabling Kernel-type interfaces for NF pods. Our experimental results demonstrate that while the NSM-based solution is overshadowed by OvS-based SFC deployment regarding maximum throughput, latency, and packet loss, it offers valuable features such as ease of use and elimination of manual configuration requirements.